Automated photographic printers for making positive paper prints from image frames of processed negative filmstrips are well known in the photographic art. Most automated printers have a film transport mechanism for step-wise advancing the filmstrip an image frame at a time from a supply reel to a take-up reel or the like and through an image frame sized scanning gate and an exposure gate at a high speed. In the scanning gate, the density and color balance of the negative may be automatically read out, and exposure parameters may be calculated and stored in memory until the same image frame is advanced into the exposure gate. The KODAK.RTM. CLAS 35 color printer is an example of such an automated, high speed printer for printing filmstrip image frames of the same size and format.
Cameras are now being developed by Eastman Kodak Company and other manufacturers to allow the photographer to selectively make either a first or "normal" (N) format exposure of a scene or a wider, second or "panoramic" (P) format exposure on a roll of 35 mm film at any time. One type of camera is provided with interchangeable normal and wide angle lens systems that focus either a normal width scene or a wide angle scene as an image captured on the same standard size filmstrip image frame, depending on the lens system selected by the photographer. With the camera held in the normal, horizontal alignment, the wide angle scene is focused down and exposed centrally, in the filmstrip width direction, in the image frame and extends along the length of the standard 35 mm image frame, leaving equal sized, unexposed, strip areas (normally occupied by the N format image) above and below the P format exposure.
The resulting exposed filmstrip may have N and P format image frames 15 and 17, respectively, interspersed randomly through its length as in the filmstrip 10 depicted in FIG. 1. The depicted segment of filmstrip 10 includes image frame numbered 1-5 along the edge of the filmstrip that are alternatively exposed as N format image frames 15 and P format image frames 17. As can be seen in FIG. 1, the filmstrip 10 conforms to the 35 mm film standard. The image frame numbers 1-5 all have the standard 35 mm length, but differ in width. Image frame numbers 2 and 4 are centered in the filmstrip width but foreshortened to about half the normal image frame width in the P format.
In commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,220,378, an optical arrangement for a high speed printer for providing multiple magnifications of a filmstrip image frame on the photographic paper is disclosed. The optical arrangement employs up to three fixed lens elements that are positioned with respect to sets of fixed mirrors and selectively positionable mirrors to expose prints selectively on up to three widths of print paper. The print paper has a fixed edge alignment with the paper transport path, and the movable mirrors are positioned selectively by a carriage to pass or reflect the image in up to three magnifications on the three paper sizes. Alternatively, the optical arrangement may be employed with the widest width paper to provide images of selected magnifications on the same paper. In either case, the magnifications of the selected images are made in both dimensions on the paper, since the image is projected to center on the paper at the center point in the width direction, regardless of the magnification.
If the optical arrangement of the '378 patent were used to print both N and P format images on the same photographic paper width, it would be presumed that the high magnification lens and mirror arrangement would be used to magnify the P format image so that the projected image would be widened to the width of the paper, thereby magnifying the length of the image projected on the paper in both directions from the imaging center point. The paper transport would have to be dependent on the detected P or N format of the filmstrip image frame to advance the photographic paper the appropriate distance from the edge of the preceding exposure frame before the image is projected.
The difficulty with this approach lies in the number of fixed focal length lenses and mirrors required to both accommodate P and N format image frames and differing width photographic paper. Photographic paper widths that may be employed in the CLAS 35 printer are typically 3.5, 4.0 and 5.0 inches. In the CLAS 35 printer, a zoom lens is employed to expand or contract the image projected into the single projection plane to fit the paper width installed.